Woman testifies Pelo stalked her for months

A woman testified Wednesday at Jeff Pelo’s rape and stalking trial that he stalked her for months after ticketing her for underage drinking in early 2002.

Matt Buedel

A woman testified Wednesday at Jeff Pelo’s rape and stalking trial that he stalked her for months after ticketing her for underage drinking in early 2002.

Jennifer King, 26, told jurors she met the former Bloomington police sergeant when he gave her the citation in February 2002. Beginning that June, she said, he repeatedly drove around her apartment complex in his squad car late at night.

McLean County authorities have filed more than three dozen charges against Pelo, 43, related to four sexual assaults from 2002 through 2005 and the stalking of a fifth woman in 2006.

He has not been charged in connection with King’s allegations.

"I would just start seeing him in my parking lot," King testified. "He was always in a cop car when I saw him, a marked squad car."

In September 2002 — three months before the first sexual assault of which Pelo is accused — someone attempted to break into King’s apartment, and she moved out within a matter of weeks.

She said she never subsequently saw Pelo around her new apartment in Normal, but she did have other interactions with him that made her believe he had been checking up on her.

King testified that on her 21st birthday in April 2003, she and a friend were walking from a downtown Bloomington bar to her car when a squad car pulled up alongside them. Pelo was in the passenger seat, while another officer drove, and Pelo offered the women a ride to their car.

King and the friend with her that night, Catherine Benjamin-Drevlow, accepted. They both testified Wednesday that Pelo directed the driver to King’s car without prompting from the women.

"He knew which car was mine, and the license plate of my car," King said.

During the ride to King’s vehicle, she confronted Pelo about the roughly 15 times she saw him watching her from his squad car near her apartment.

Yet King felt concerned enough about what she deemed stalking that she told her father about it in the fall of 2002. He called Pelo to warn him to stay away from his daughter.

Dan King testified Wednesday that when he was transferred to Pelo at the Bloomington Police Department, he told Pelo there would be consequences if his daughter continued to complain. He said he would visit Pelo, and "the trip would not be wasted."

Pelo had "no real response" to the stalking allegations or threat, Dan King said. "He kind of chuckled."

Defense attorney Michael Rosenblat prevented the jury from hearing other testimony related to stalking Wednesday when he successfully challenged the relevance of a state witness.

Leo Worth would have told jurors he was seated next to Pelo at a little league baseball game in the spring of 2003 when Pelo received a call on his cell phone from someone apparently accusing him of stalking and harassment.

Worth heard only part of Pelo’s responses in the conversation, and McLean County Associate Judge Robert Freitag agreed the connection was too tenuous to allow at the trial.

Pelo’s trial continues Thursday. If convicted of all the charges, he could spend the rest of his life in prison.